Mar 24 2011

The Emperor’s War

Published by at 8:16 am under All General Discussions,Obama's War In Libya

Americans don’t like their intelligence insulted. And right now blundering team Obama is shotgunning alibis and excuses so fast that they sound more like a kid caught doing something they promised their parents they would never do, instead of leading some mythical and pure humanitarian rescue. Every parent right now is cringing over the lameness of the BS dripping from DC.

For example, is trying not to say the word ‘war’ by replacing it with ever more twisted euphemisms really going to remove the illegal and immoral taint that soaks this staged attack on Libya?

In the last few days, Obama administration officials have frequently faced the question: Is the fighting in Libya a war? From military officers to White House spokesmen up to the president himself, the answer is no. But that leaves the question: What is it?

In a briefing on board Air Force One Wednesday, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes took a crack at an answer. “I think what we are doing is enforcing a resolution that has a very clear set of goals, which is protecting the Libyan people, averting a humanitarian crisis, and setting up a no-fly zone,” Rhodes said. “Obviously that involves kinetic military action, particularly on the front end.”

Are we using bombs and missiles to force Libayns to shuffle off their mortal coils prematurely? Are we using deadly coercion to accelerate the demise of homo sapien sapiens on the surface of planet Earth?

Or are we executing mass killings using overwhelming military force to kill people with stand off weapons. Are the sands of Libya red with the life blood of people?

This is pathetic and disturbing. It is clear Obama and his 3 EU Amigos have violated the UN Charter and the US Constitution in instigating the uprising in Libya, and then claiming they have no choice but to militarily come to the aid of the people they instigated into an insane and doomed uprising. Circular reasoning at its finest and most blatant.

The level of unease is rising here in the US, rising to a level of concern and disgust as more and more coherent challenges are voiced in response to the lame PR muttered incoherently across the halls of DC. For example, who can argue with these sentiments:

On Saturday I had space to flag the basic difficulty of the allied Libya “strategy,” namely, that it is no strategy at all, and we don’t know what we’re doing. We cannot articulate what we want to achieve, beyond preventing the “humanitarian disaster” to which we are now substantially contributing. Western statesmen can’t even agree if they want Gadhafi to be gone. Nor, apparently, have their generals been briefed coherently on the purpose of this war. They could not even explain if missile strikes on Gadhafi’s compound were intended to hurt him.

We are realizing the ship of state is being run by a ship of fools. How hard is to simply get on message? But it much worse than lousy message control. We have been duped and are now exposed:

Russia and China waived their vetoes on the Security Council, granting us permission to score an own goal, then immediately launched their rhetorical opposition. The Arab League has said it never approved of bombing, just “no fly.”

We have lost the meager international support this mad endeavor was supposedly founded on. So now we have to investigate what went wrong and why checks and balances were unconstitutionally tossed aside in a rush to ‘do something’. Now we have burning questions that are brutal and precise – just the opposite of how this action has been executed:

His homecoming gift is a barrage of questions about the military action Obama aides refuse to label a “war.”

As attacks on Libya entered their fifth day, American aircraft have been increasingly bearing the brunt of front-line combat operations – flying 113 of the 175 sorties conducted over the last 24 hours — despite repeated assurances from the White House and State Department that the U.S. was about to take a back seat.

The Obama administration prides itself on moving quickly in times of crisis, but this time they have moved so quickly to counter Qadhafi’s threat to rebels they were forced to create a command structure “on the fly,” in the words of Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The problem is that U.S. partners – France, Britain and Turkey – have spent the past two days squabbling about a new organizational structure to replace what Obama calls the U.S.’s “unique” capacity to quarterback command-and-control functions.

In other words, we’re ready to turn in the rental car, but can’t find anyone to take the keys and contract.

To summarize, is there even an exit available, let alone a strategy to use it? Worse yet – who’s in charge?

“It is very dangerous to have confusion about command and control. If people’s lives are at risk and you’re using military forces, you need to have a rather clear understanding as to who’s in charge and who’s making the decisions,” former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who knows a thing or two about the hazards of poor planning, told POLITICO.

“And these unusual debates that are taking place about who’s going to be in command, what military official is going to be in command, which country, I think has to be worrisome for people.”

….

While the U.S. is insisting NATO take charge, France, with an assist from Turkey, has thus far blocked NATO from assuming overall command of the mission.

The French argument: A NATO takeover would westernize the effort, discouraging already nervous Arab League countries from stepping up to take combat risks and to defray no-fly zone costs, estimated to be as high $100 million per month.

What? This whole Libya thing was actually concocted and created in the West? Are the French really that clueless?

This is getting so bad there is no choice now but for leadership in Congress to either step up to their oaths and protect this nation and our Constitution from this bumbling rabble – or else pay the price for being spectators as we allow some liberal know-nothings to send us into a quagmire filled with Islamist land mines. Time to call Obama to the carpet on this one.

Update: Ed Morrissey dives into the “kinetic action” lunacy.

10 responses so far

10 Responses to “The Emperor’s War”

  1. WWS says:

    And we are all deafened by the Silence of the Liberals.

    Leftist morality is now revealed in all it’s glory:

    1) anything done by people that they don’t like is EVIL, and the Left’s moral outrage is sent into hyperdrive if there is a chance of gaining political power from it.

    2) war, lies, disregard of the law and outright murder are all funny and cute as long as they are done by people that the Left likes – and can *never* be mentioned or acknowledged if doing so might threaten the Left’s grasp on political power.

    Really, that’s all. That is all the words “morality” and “ethics” mean to them. It’s all “Situational”, you see.

  2. A long time ago, I saw an episode of “AMERICA’S DEFENSE MONITOR” titled “The Language of War”, in which retired U. S. Army Colonel Harry Summers (among others) was objecting to the use of euphemisms disguising the realities of war…

    One of the little vignettes I used to tell to a War College audience when I talked to them and a true story. When I used to work at the Pentagon here and I’d walk home from work, about a mile or so, in military uniform, invariably a little gaggle of kids would follow along, ’cause they were attracted to the uniform, and they’d invariably ask two questions. And the first question is, “What are you in the Army,” or whatever, and you’d say — I’d say the Army. The next question invariably was, “Have you ever killed anybody?” And, as I’d say to a War College audience, “Those bloodthirsty little bastards know what the Army is for, you’re the ones that have forgotten.”

    The reason we maintain an armed force is to kill people and destroy things in the name of the United States. If you don’t want to do that, that’s all well and good, but don’t hide from yourself and don’t kid yourself what the military is. And it’s their ability to do that that gives them their value. It’s that threat, the old iron hand in a velvet glove, if you will, that gives the military its utility as an instrument of the foreign policy of the United States. And that reality has to be kept in people’s minds and, among other reasons, so that the armed forces are not committed lightly.

    The idea, well, we can send the armed forces in for some sort of a — a peaceful resolution to the crisis; that’s not what they do. They — They are not a scalpel, they’re a meat ax or a battle ax, and when you need a battle ax, they’re very good at that sort of thing. But the — So, euphemisms are dangerous and we ought not to use them.

  3. […] an emergency existed to protect the rebels he so cleverly manipulated into open, armed action. Post upon post upon post have communicated my concerns and why this is not a time for complacent […]

  4. sherlock says:

    Excellent piece, but it’s “Emp-E-ror’s War”, AJ.

  5. AJStrata says:

    Sherlock,

    You know, you would expect the spell checker to work on the titles as well as the body – wouldn’t you?

  6. sherlock says:

    AJ, I just want to make sure that when they quote you they can’t change the subject by making fun of your spelling. We here all know: spelling little, ideas big.

  7. […] The Emperor’s War This is getting so bad there is no choice now but for leadership in Congress to either step up to their oaths and protect this nation and our Constitution from this bumbling rabble – or else pay the price for being spectators as we allow some liberal know-nothings to send us into a quagmire filled with Islamist land mines. Time to call Obama to the carpet on this one. […]

  8. AJStrata says:

    Sherlock,

    Been spelling like that my whole life – no biggie!

  9. WWS says:

    I prefer Imperator anyways.

    That’s the original, and it’s a lot closer to what Obama thinks he is.

  10. Mike M. says:

    Nope. Obama is the Fooey. Just like Adenoid Hynkel.

    (From the Chaplin film “The Great Dictator”, if you didn’t catch the reference)